Re: TERMS: Umlaut-Ablaut

Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> i-umlaut is common in all the Germanic languages, cf. English:
> [...]
> But Welsh also has examples of a-umlaut, cf.
> gwyn (white <-- *windo-) ~ fem. gwen (<-- *winda)
> byr (short) ~ fem. ber
I like those! You know, I'm stealing language features at a
terrible rate these days. :)

I have two questions: are there natlangs where umlaut is still
productive? (Sindarin comes to mind...) And is it common to
have several types of umlaut, like Welsh? I'm thinking that
having i- and a-umlaut may be more likely than having, say,
i- and u-umlaut, since those could confuse roots even more
(what is */mys/, << /misu/ or << /musi/)?

Well, and a third question: which vowels are more likely to
cause umlaut? All we've seen until now is the vertices of
the vowel triangle.


--Pablo Flores
  http://draseleq.conlang.org/pablo-david/